With the rise of wireless networks and devices the European Commission has funded a research program to look at integrating the various interface standards.
Mobile devices, such as wireless phones, PDAs, interactive set-top boxes, laptops and other applications are becoming more and more common in people’s lives. A considerable part of the cost of these devices resides in the number and complexity of software interfaces required to enable them to connect with each other and servers through wired and wireless links.
To that end a consortium of seven partners, comprised of universities and R&D units from four European countries and backed by the EC have developed Gollum API, a uniform interface designed to improve their functionality and interoperability.
The consortium says that trial implementations of Gollum API have revealed a number of advantages over existing solutions. Through the uniform standard, it says that a range of legacy as well as future technologies can be handled in a transparent and simple way. The support for asynchronous notifications also allows applications to react dynamically to events happening on the available communication links.
Finally, the consortium says that the API is also light enough to be applied to a large variety of computer equipment including sensors, embedded and mobile devices. Ultimately, the creators are hoping that having a uniform standard will allow programmers to concentrate on their devices rather than the interface needed to make it work.
